Estate office to file fresh data on building violations in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: The UT administration has asked the estate office to compile a fresh report on building violations in the commercial areas of the city and submit it at the earliest.

Last year, the estate office had given the administration all the data on building violations in the commercial areas of Chandigarh. This was on the directions of a committee that UT administrator V P Singh Badnore had constituted for the redress of traders' grievances.

Thereafter, the UT administration had sought some clarifications but now sources in the administration say that the estate office had orders to compile an updated report.

Already, the UT administrator had constituted two separate committees for the redress of all the grievances of local traders and manufacturers. The estate office, who was assigned the responsibility of preparing a report on building violations in commercial areas of different sectors of the city, had pointed out illegal removing of internal walls in the shop-cum-offices (SCOs) and the rampant use of basement for activities other than storage. This was in the earlier report.

Traders had a long list of demands. They want certain prohibited activities allowed in shops. Various departments such as the estate office and the municipal corporation have issued them notice over these violations in the past. One of the major demands of Chandigarh Beopar Mandal (CBM) is to roll back the misuse charges slapped on the violators.

In 2007, the estate office had also increased the penalties for the misuse of shops and the violation of building bylaws. The monthly fines went up from Rs 10 to Rs 500 for each square feet of the area being misused by the occupier. Later, the administration started sending out notices under the new rules, which triggered a panic among property owners, since the amount of penalty ran in crores or rupees in many cases.

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Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) also plans a fresh survey to check violations amid ongoing protests by flat residents against demolition notices. The CHB had last compiled the data a few years ago and now it plans to constitute different teams to prepare a fresh report.

Recently, to protect innocent buyers, the board had decided to give both sellers and purchasers the option of filing a joint application for flat inspection by the CHB, for a certificate stating that the unit is free of building violations at that point of time.